World News Quick Take

Agencies

MYANMAR

Plane mishap causes deaths

Two people were killed and 10 wounded in the northeast yesterday when a passenger plane missed an airport runway in heavy fog and landed in a rice paddy, state TV said. The pilot of the Air Bagan plane touched down beyond Heho airport in Shan State, killing an 11-year-old passenger and a motorcyclist on the ground, MRTV said. Four foreigners and the pilot were among the injured. The plane was carrying 63 passengers, 51 of whom were foreigners, MRTV said.

CHINA

Abducted children freed

A national operation has uncovered nine child-abduction gangs, arresting 355 suspects and rescuing 89 children. The Ministry of Public Security said on Monday that it conducted the nine-province operation this month after receiving reports of child abductions from Fujian and Yunnan provinces. The ministry said the child-trafficking activities spanned several provinces and that the suspects bought abducted children and transported them to other provinces, where they were sold for huge profits. Xinhua news agency said that in one case, a one-month-old boy from Yunnan Province was sold for 62,800 yuan (US$10,070) to a family in Fujian Province. A baby boy could fetch as much as 90,000 yuan, Xinhua said.

PHILIPPINES

Top rebel leader arrested

A top communist rebel with a US$128,000 bounty on his head was arrested yesterday, the military said. The arrest of Filemon Mendrez, the country’s sixth-most-wanted man, comes amid a Christmas ceasefire. Mendrez, a key New People’s Army rebel leader, is due to stand trial, an army statement said, but details on the criminal cases against him were not disclosed.

MEXICO

Gun buy-back launched

Mexico City is sponsoring a program offering cash, toys and computer equipment in exchange for guns in a rough neighborhood where a 10-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet as he sat in a movie theater. Borough president Jesus Valencia wrote in his Twitter account on Monday that residents had turned in 27 rifles and 65 pistols. Ten-year-old Hendrik Cuacuas died last month after being hit in the head by a 9mm bullet during the Disney film Wreck-It Ralph.

UNITED KINGDOM

HBO show most pirated

Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show of the year, with a single episode being illegally downloaded by more people than typically watch the hit program in the US. The HBO show knocked off last year’s “winner,” serial killer show Dexter, to be named the most-pirated TV show of this year. The annual report, by news site TorrentFreak, found that one episode of Game of Thrones was downloaded 4.28 million times. A supporting blog post by Ernesto Van Der Sar, founder and editor-in-chief of TorrentFreak, said that the data showed that Australia was responsible for the biggest amount of pirating of Game of Thrones. The US was ranked second and the UK fourth. London was ranked first as the top-ranking city for pirating of the show.

GUATEMALA

Prosecutor, six others slain

A federal prosecutor and six other people were killed in an attack near the Mexican border blamed on drug traffickers, officials said on Monday. The attackers burned the bodies of their victims, including Chiquimula prosecutor Irma Olivares, a businessman and the director of a regional government social services agency, Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said. The bodies of three bodyguards were found in another charred vehicle nearby.